What if Home Depot leaves suddenly?

Letter to the editor

Posted: Thursday, January 22, 2004

Everybody's excited! Home Depot is coming! Somehow this does not seem so inviting to me as I drive by the vandal-inviting cavernous Kmart store with its huge and useless parking lot. The Mapco Express is another testament to retail industry leaving Juneau with an unsightly mess to live with.

Maybe it's time to require corporations to provide an exit plan in case things don't work out so nicely. The Kmart store is full of wet cardboard, broken pipes and equipment that is broken. Do we need more abandoned commercial buildings to testify to the corporations' lack of care for the local community?

While considering the above problems, maybe we could also think about the living wage jobs about to be lost by local residents at our locally based stores. I like those guys at Valley Lumber!

While this is private property, it also impacts our community and is therefore a matter of concern to all of us. Let's have an exit plan for Home Depot.